Wednesday, October 24, 2007

(The opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not represent pension advice. We recommend that for pension advice members should call a qualified pension consultant. )

There has been a great deal of discussion on the blogs and in schools about the pension deal and the merit pay plan. Before we begin please note that currently Tier IV members need to have 30 years of service and be at least 55 to retire without penalty or they have to be 62 years old and meet other criteria.

It is also important to note that the proposed 55/25 will provide a pension without a penalty. If someone retires at 55 with 25 years of service, the final pension you receive will be 10% less than if you retired with 30 years. Obviously, the more years you work, the greater the pension.

Listed below is the actual 2005 Contractual language for pension legislation along with much of a letter from city Labor Commissioner James Hanley to Randi Weingarten. Hopefully, after reading this piece UFT members will have some factual information for when the parade of Unity representatives come to the schools to try to sell yet another questionable deal, even though we won't even get to vote on this one because we already approved most of this in the 2005 Contract.

Article 4C from the 2005 Contract called Pension Legislation:

1. A Labor-Management Pension Committee will be established to investigate legislation allowing all current and future members of the TRS Tier II, III and IV to retire without a reduction of benefits due to early retirement upon age 55 with at least 25 years of service, as well as other relevant pension issues.

2. The Committee will analyze the actual costs and additional contribution rates required to provide this benefit (including any additional health insurance benefit costs) without any cost to the City.

3. Upon mutual acceptance of the Committee's recommendations, including plan design and costs, the parties agree to jointly support the legislation necessary to implement the benefit changes.

The Four main provisions of the pension agreement that were written in a letter from city labor commissioner to UFT President Randi Weingarten last week that goes now to Albany for approval.

(1) An "opt-in period" of six months in which any incumbent employee who wishes to participate in this optional program must affirmatively submit a written election to participate.

(2) Additional Member Contributions (AMC) - in addition to all currently required statutory contributions, an Additional Member Contribution (AMC) of 1.85% shall be paid by those employees electing to participate in this optional program as well as by all newly-hired employees participating in the TRS and newly-hired UFT-represented above listed members participating in BERS retirement systems. These additional member contributions shall become effective on the first business day after the enactment of the enabling legislation.

(3) Current incumbent employees including those on leave who elect to participate in this optional program and who pay the requisite AMC shall be eligible to retire at age 55 with 25 years of credited service with immediate payability of pension benefits without any reduction. Assuming the legislation is effectuated in 2007-08 school year, those who elect this pension will be eligible to retire 6/30/08 or later.

(4) Employees hired after enactment of this enabling legislation shall be eligible to retire at age 55 with 27 years of service and receive immediate payability of pension benefits without any reduction. This will not be construed to change the eligibility for retiree health insurance benefits (i.e., ten years of credited service and pension payability) as determined by the City and the Municipal Labor Committee and in accordance with the Administrative Code.

So Who Wins and Loses?

The Pension Agreement

The Winners

1. Generally, UFT members who started in the system (or another system but got city TRS pension credit for it) between the ages of 26 and 36 should consider opting in on 55/25 even though they will have to pay 1.85% of their salary for the rest of their career into their pension. They will be able to retire when they complete at least 25 years of service as long as they are at least 55 years old without the substantial percentage reduction in pension income that exists now. (If someone opts in and changes their mind and decides to stay the full 30 years or until age 62, I doubt they will get a refund of those additional contributions so if you opt in, you will probably need to retire as soon as you can to stay a winner.)

2. Anyone who started in the retirement system younger than age 26 but took substantial time off on un-credited, unpaid leave (child care, restoration of health without pay) which means they won't have the required 30 years of service that is needed to retire at age 55 without opting in to 55/25 . Anyone in this category also should consider opting in if they want to retire at age 55 with at least 25 years of service without a reduction. Remember, however, you will have to pay 1.85% of salary into the retirement system for the rest of your career if you opt in.

3. People who cover classes gain as coverages will be counted as income when figuring out the Final Average Salary that pension payments are based upon.

4. The City of New York- The NY Times reported last Thursday that Bloomberg expects the city will gain tens of millions of dollars over the long term from this agreement. For more on how the city gains, read on.

The No Gainers

1. Anyone who started before age 26 (and will work straight through until retirement) cannot retire a day earlier because of this agreement as far as we can tell. They will still need to work at least 30 years to collect a full pension upon retirement.

2. Anyone who started at age 37 or later cannot retire a day earlier because of this agreement as far as we can tell because they won't have the years of service that are necessary to take advantage of the new program. At age 62, their retirement won't be subject to a reduction in benefits.

3. Tier I members

Note that all of the no gainers could gain from coverages being pensionable.

The Big Losers

Teachers not yet hired-

Right now UFT members have to pay 3% of their salary into the pension for the first ten years of service and then nothing for the rest of their career. Under the new system they will have to pay 4.85% for the first ten years and 1.85% thereafter but they will not be permitted to retire at 55 with 25 years of service as was agreed to in Article 4C1 of the Contract. Instead, the new agreement says they have to complete 27 years and be at least 55. In addition, a teacher hired right out of college at age 22 will have to work 33 years to be able to retire and unlike those teaching now, they will have to make pension contributions for their entire career, not just the first ten years of service. That is why we are calling this provision a de-facto Tier V and this is how the city wins.

We would like everyone who reads this blog who would like to question a Unity representative to ask why Randi gave up so many of our rights in the 2005 Contract but she couldn't get what the city agreed to in the Contract: "legislation allowing all current and future members of the TRS Tier II, III and IV to retire without a reduction of benefits due to early retirement upon age 55 with at least 25 years of service?" Emphasis on future members added by us. 55/27 for yet to be hired teachers is not 55/25 and pension contributions for new teachers for their entire careers is a step backwards.

Merit Pay

The little ugly merit pay provision was snuck into the last Contract in an Article 8L which you won't find much about in those glossy "fact sheets" and special NY Teacher editions selling the punitive giveback laden Contract that among other indignities forced us back to hall patrols and gave us work in August. The school-wide bonuses for improved student performance are there also. Article 8L says:

Labor/Management Committee On Long Term Reforms

With regard to the long term recommendations the 2005 Fact Finders made subject to adequate CFE funding, the parties shall establish a Labor Management Committee to discuss the following issues: a)bonuses, including housing bonuses, for shortage license areas; b) a pilot project for school-wide based performance bonuses for sustained growth in student achievement c) salary differentials at the MA-5 through MA-7 levels; and d) a program for the reduction of class sizes in all grades and divisions. If the parties agree on the terms of any or all of these issues, they may be implemented by the Board using whatever funds may be identified.

You see ladies and gentlemen we voted for merit pay when we voted for the 2005 Contract.

Is anyone holding their breath waiting for the class size reduction program in Article 8L to be implemented?

The Winners

Nobody

The Grand Losers

New York City educators, parents, students and anyone nationally who attempts to follow NYC and implement such a dumb merit pay plan. We will see millions of dollars that could go to worthy projects such as lowering class sizes, adding more guidance counselors, social workers or paras, or starting up more after school programs that instead will be raised for a completely useless merit pay plan whose underlying assumption is that if the city dangles a possible $3,000 in front of a school staff, then teachers will work harder than they are working now and veteran teachers will run to transfer to difficult schools for that potential 3 grand. This merit pay plan is a combination boondoggle-slap in our faces.

49 comments:

Anonymous
said...

How exciting first post! I agree this merit plan is utterly insulting and our union should be saying so, not endorsing it. The union should be speaking out about how this $ could be better spent. As per the decision to opt in or not, think about this one. Correct me if I'm wrong, but once you opt in your in period? So if you move, quit or get a job in the green pastures of L I, your just throwing away 1.85% of your salary?

Oh, on another note I just read the article in the NYTeacher on the wonderful public housing we are building. I noticed "adminstrators" on the list of possible occupants? Do I really need to get into all the reasons this rubs me funny. Just wanted to throw this out there.

I love the people who have the time to post in the middle of the day. Of course you work for the UFT. I don't know of too many people who work in the schools who have time to post on blogs during work.

Peter "Bowtie" Lamphere - "I'm from TJC, we are kind of like you guys in ICE except you guys wear t-shirts and I wear a bowtie. How do I become an ICEsickle? Can you guys teach me the secret handshake? I promise I'll wear a t-shirt too"

James "E. Turtle" - "If you want to be in ICE, you have to go get the coffee."

Un-Norm-al - "I like ICEd coffee."

Jeff "Andy" Kaufman - "I went to Dunkin Donuts this morning and they messed up my coffee. I asked for no milk and the gave me milk. I'm pretty sure it was Randi's fault. I din't see her come in through the front door, but I bet you she snuck in from the back. Regardless, I drank the coffee...I'll proactively apologize for my gas now."

Woodhag - "Don't worry Jeff, all of us are filled with hot air."

Kip Winger - "Yeah, don't worry. I would say something else...but I never have anything important to say."

Jeff and Norm were writing plays long before this one. Think of something original please. Also, wasn't there a spoof of EdWise called Edz up. Come on and write about where anything in the post you are commenting on is false. No, you can't do that so you try your usual personal attacks. Give us a break.

Try to put that "caveat" about not being a pension expert and then begin to given pension adivce like my chapter leader did. He actually handed out specific percentages of what people would get if they retired and when. Not knowing he was a pension conultant surprised me but I guess this way he can make it seem like he is doing something.

Let me guess - you all strategized about what to focus on and how to complain about the deal regardless of the good that maybe in there. You will find bad in anything the duely elected UFT leadership does. Hence why you guys were voted out of every union wide position. Thank goodness for democracy.

You guys obviously don't know anything about the people you are writing about. That is obvious. Still waiting for you to say one thing about the post that was not accurate. Can't find one. No problem. We just attack Peter's tie.

Democracy? Most people don't even bother to vote. Did you see that very few people bothered to vote in the election? why do those ICE people keep getting elected in their schools where people know them best?

The 2 of you that put in the last 7 posts are missing that my Chapter Leader is taking your lead and is giving out one-on-one pension "consultations" if you want to call it that. My question is how many individual member's futures will you ruin to make your politcal claim that everything the UFT leadership does is bad?

Reading your TJC's friend's lit and hearing from my chapter leader that it is going against the AFT, our national affiliate, here is what they have to say:

http://aft.org/presscenter/releases/2007/101807.htm

The United Federation of Teachers and Mayor Bloomberg have worked together to develop a locally negotiated, voluntary, schoolwide initiative that rewards and promotes the collaborative work environment favored by educators. Such initiatives have long been advocated by the AFT. The agreement also provides pension equity for all current and prospective teachers and paraprofessionals. We know that changes in compensation systems work only if, as in this system, they have been developed with—and have the buy-in —of teachers directly affected by the changes.

I like Diane Ravitch's views a lot, but I think she's missed it when it come to this "Committee" thing, for shares in any school "Bonus. Principals who are crazed, and who intimidate their staff, will forfeit the "Bonus" rather than vote to have teachers who they don't like, share in the Bonus. What's more likely is that this kind of principal will intimidate the two teacher members of the committee into voting shares to teachers that are in the principal's own network, in the school. So much for merit. Just another tool for crazed principal academy grads to wield even more pow

The city will save millions in pension contributions because members are paying more. This is a bad tradeoff, not a gain.

You don't have to be against 55/25 but you could say more explicitly that this particular bill should be rejected by the legislature because of the way it is being funded.

Our colleagues who will scream bloody murder at anyone seeming to block their exit are concerned with their own individual escape from an increasingly hellish work environment and not with a collective approach to low median salaries, poor working and learning conditions. The "no gainers" and "loosers" you refer to in your very informative blog piece have more reason to scream bloody murder than the much smaller number of "winners".

The 55/25/Merit Pay is a hand out to the city masked as a gain for the membership. It is not a gain for the membership as a whole, only a minority , at the expense of the majority. There is no cause here for special treatment of this minority. It is a measure that rights no wrong. It is a Ponzi scheme for the members, courtesy of Unity Inc., that leaves us feeding on ourselves. Each successive generation under Unity's leadership is expected to sellout the unborn. It's like paying for a raise by lowering the starting salary.

Unity Inc is fronting for the city and relying on the senior members to bite, and bite hard. Divide and conquer is Unity's modus operandi. What is the alternative? Easy for me to say since I am not among the "winners" as you defined them in your blogpiece. I don't blame those 'winners' , our colleagues, for jumping at the bait. Solidarity? Never heard of it in the UFT. They are just not part of the solution to the problems that the rest of us face. I think an opposition worthy of the name should say that it is not in the best interests of a union to trade in this way. It is in fact the opposite of what Unions were formed to do.

Unity is pedaling this version of 25/55 like they did the longevity increases for thirty years. A carrot for the few at the expense of the many. I understand that some of our colleagues would opt in if given the opportunity, but 25/55 for the minority and a Tier V for the future is not progress by any stretch of the imagination and for that reason this bill should be opposed.

I heard Diane ravitch speak at 52 B'way on Tuesday, at a meeting of the Governance Committee to which she was invited, and was impressed by the conciseness of her responses to questions. However, in this piece she misses an important point that fundamentally weakens her argument about the UFT getting over in this deal: she underestimates the degree to which test scores are likely to be the basis of the merit pay - yes, I insist on calling it merit pay - benchmarks. We all know that,.UFT rhetoric aside, test scores will be the basis for these benchmarks, and that constitutes a victory for the mayor. This deal institutionalizes test scores as the basis for judging school success, and officially brings the nation's largest teacher union local on board with that. And while it may not explicitly pit teachers against each other, except possibly when it's time to divvy up the blood money, it certainly pits schools against one another, with ELL's, special ed students and others left out in the cold.

Given the strong possibility that private and foundation money may become less available for this type of thing in the coming months and years - Eli Broad and another of his ilk had to provide an emergency injection of a BILLION DOLLARS into a Goldman Sachs hedge fund not long ago, and the city's ability to continue to fund this in a climate of investment banker layoffs and declining tax receipts based on rising real estate values- I think it's quite possible the whole thing may die on the vine.

However, the fact that the UFT would participate in something so antithetical to basic trade union values, and so destructive to the fabric of public education, is reprehensible.

Let's be realistic: Why would anyone even want to work for a goal that is essentiallyout of one's control?

Education is not piece work. It's not even linear. With some kids even ifthey tried "harder" they still don't "get it" for one reason or another.Perhaps the cognitive abilities haven't developed enough yet. How many adultsstill have trouble with reading comprehension, and / or writing, and / or mathematics, etc.

Besides development factors. No one is even factoring in IQ in whether a given child is ever going to be capable of a given skill set. We all know about the host of environmental and social factors.

But what happens if everyone works, say, longer hours than they already do and then it turns out the scores aren't high enough. So no bonus. No one has mentioned that yet.

If it comes up at my school, I'll vote no, and let it be known that I am not interested in the bonus.

“Physicians I talked to in preparing this post laughed at me when I asked if their performance bonuses were based on patient outcomes. The most common response was that those outcomes were largely out of their control, so their hospitals rewarded them based on their inputs - i.e. hours, procedures, and revenues.”

Of course, outcomes are even more out of the control of teachers, unless they devote all their time to test prep or resort to cheating – neither of which would be considered desirable.

Aha. So the real issue is screwing new teachers of the future! Pathetic. I think this administration loves to pit groups against each other using the power of money. It is not all that different from the way taxi cab drivers have been treated! The mayor defuses striking power by imposing monetary incentives for taxi cab drivers willing to be scabs and causes the public to be angry at striking cab drivers because "they have to pay so much more for a ride". The scabbers just love the profit! The "strike" has the effectiveness of a grand joke! There are probably some teachers who are in teaching for the short hall who completely look forward to a $3,000 paycheck and ignore what it will do for future teachers! Those near retirement who just want to get the hell out and won't have to contribute the extra percentage for too long, will probably also vote for short term money based on their own interests. Meanwhile, the threat of school closings tied to acceptance of merit pay and its possible repercussions will loom overhead to further create a climate of paranoia... YIPES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! When does all this stop?

"I see this as an individual plan with an additional step - first, the school must meet benchmarks, and second, teachers can be differentially rewarded. Unless the committee of four announces upfront that bonuses will be distributed equally (can someone weigh in here about whether a distribution plan will be ratified upfront?), teachers are going to operate under the assumption that there will be unequal shares based on their students' test scores. Even if we see equal bonuses this year, the door is wide open and I see Mike and Joel on the horizon in a performance pay Mack truck."

This is exactly what Eli Broad was counting on. Merit pay bonuses aredesigned to cause disharmony in the schools. Their objective is todivide and weaken the liberal teacher unions. Eli Broad could not givea rats ass about student achievement. This is part of the vast rightwing conspiracy to destroy teacher unions.

With Chicago facing merit pay too, it would be good if someone were focusing on this mindless (and mind numbing) faith in "markets" to solve any and every problem. The only thing that markets really do is assing "value" based on profit margins (or stock price capital gains returns), which, as every close look at history (economic and other) has shown, immediately lead to massive highest level corruption (Texas, Harken Oil; Baghdad, Coalition Provisional Authority; Chile, charter schools, to name a few examples from the past 40 years). This takes place inevitably and is literally built into the "market" model of social good. It is not (as the market fanatics, including Alan Greenspan, claim) a "distortion."

I've just finished reading "The Shock Doctrine" (by Naomi Klein, who writes regularly for The Nation) and highly recommend it. Trouble for many of us is, as long as the leaders of the teachers' unions go along with "market" theory and all of its insanities (plural), we're facing uphill battles. Klein shows just how bad it can become.

The Ayn Rand nut cases, at all the right wing think tanks -- from the University of Chicago to the Heritage Foundation to the World Bank -- have had a field day since the end of Soviet Style Communism to prove how badly their theories fail human socieities. These market theories especially fail in meeting the needs of human children and aged adults (the two most vulnerable general populations in any society). Trouble is, they've always had their apologists within the "House of Labor" (at least in the USA), where ideological corruption has been greatest and the actual representation of the working class the least (and least effective).

I just read the UFT' Q & A on the 55/25, 55/27 and the school wide bonus. None of the information there contradicts anything said on this blog by ICE. It's just a nicer spin tha UFT puts on it. I guess this is why the Unity people had to resort to personal attacks; they cannot argue facts.

SCENE 3: A bathroom in the Waldorf during Teacher Union Day. All of the ICEsickles are sitting in adjacent stalls...

Petey "Bowtie" Lamphere - "Waaaahhhhh, it's not fair, we should be getting the awards."

Jeff "Andy" Kaufman - "It makes me sad to see you cry Petey. Someday soon you will surely win the Cogen Award. By the way, could you pass the toilet paper, it's been nearly a month and I finally took a dump."

Un-Norm-al - "I don't like the toilet paper here, I like the soft fluffy stuff. I bet you Randi gave us this rough stuff on purpose."

"Salad" the Barber - "You know guys, me and the boys can go in there and make sure we all get awards. We'll make them Unity Hacks an offer they can't refuse. Aren't I cool?"

James "E. Turtle" - "I should get an award. I give one on one pension consultations to all of the teachers in my school. Funny thing is, I don't know what a pension really is."

Kip Winger - "Woodhag, why are you using the men's room? I can't go with you in here."

Woodhag - "I'm just one of the ICE guys, we spit on boundaries."

Petey "Bowtie" Lamphere - "I admire you for that. You should have won an award. I'll make you one tonight using popsickle sticks and macaroni."

Un-Norm-al - "This rough stuff is really causing my 'roids to flare. It hurts. We should make a movie about this, it's a conspiracy"

About the Q & A on the schoolwide bonus (mentioned by Anon. NOV. 3, 4:42) -- they don't contradict anything ICE has written, and they should have answered a whole lot of other questions.

"There's a kind of Cheneyesque darkness to the thing, not only for the secrecy and precipitous unveiling of this plan, but for the unsettling feeling that we're being asked to sacrifice a bit of our professional ethics to something quite foreign to us: venality. ......" Full article at www.underassault.blogspot.com/2007/11/q-on-q.html

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Each year our union is required, by law, to file several financial reports. The form, called an LM-2, is available here. This report reflect transactions for the year ending July 31, 2014. It was prepared on December 23, 2014.

Additionally the Department of Labor provides other reports about the UFT. Go to their site and input file number 063-924 at the top and select the type of report you want to review. These files are in spreadsheet format.